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Wine Corks?

I am a new bee keeper and looking to save a couple dollars and make some homemade top feeders. I was thinking of using small bowls filled with syrup and then putting in some split wine corks (so they could sit on and feed from them). I thought if they were split the would roll over as easily and drown the bees. Has anyone used such an idea or heard of one, any help would be greatly appriciated.

Re: Wine Corks?

Welcome to Beesource!

A cheap and easy feeder is to drill/punch small holes in the lid of a quart Mason (canning) jar, fill it with syrup, and turn it upside down. My local resale store sells used Mason jars for 50 cents each.

You can put some small shims under the lid to create a space for the bees to access the upturned jar. Or, cut a hole in an inner cover or similar hive top board and feed the bees inside their hive, with the jar outside. That way, only your bees get to the syrup.

Re: Wine Corks?

I agree with Rader - jars are great feeders that don't drown bees. What you are thinking of doing will probably get more feed into the hive faster - if it holds enough feed to begin with - but it will drown some bees, and other than late fall usually you don't need to get a lot of feed into the hive all that fast.

Re: Wine Corks?

I use shallow trays filled with a single layer of rocks. I put these on my front porch. I like to watch them. I've also decided it's a "flowvane." The bee traffic starts falling as the day wears on. I think that means some of the real stuff out there finally opened.

Re: Wine Corks?

Originally Posted by WBVC

Does this not attract ants, flies, wasps, rats/mice and other critters you may not want on your front porch?

It has rarely attracted ants. Not sure why. I do see the occasional wasp, which I just take as an opportunity to test my drone removal skills. Have never seen evidence of rats or mice or other critters. I do have a nice dog out front...

Re: Wine Corks?

I started using 1gal quail/chick waterers last year during the dearth. Put about 3 ft section of 1/4" nylon rope coiled in the trough or even a little straw as something for them to keep their footing. I lost maybe a dozen bees total in 5 hives. The temps have to get into the 50's and stay there for a while in order to get the feed warmed up enough. This has been a challenge this spring thus far but last fall was perfect for it. Was so good for build up that I ended up cutting them off. I also use the quart versions for nucs. Don't be surprised if they take a gallon a day for the first few days. Consumption will peter off as they see fit. Once they can get a nectar source they will all but ignore it. I can see where it may work better as an autumn solution rather than spring. Oh yeah, take off inner cover and place directly on frames or they just won't get to it. Temps should be where you feel good about leaving inner cover off, if that helps any. Cost for each one is about $5........$4 for quart feeder. Is this something that anyone on this thread is doing/has done?

P.S. Before I used the waterers, I too was trying to save a little money and used shallow rubbermaid containers with straw thrown in there as something to crawl on. I can say that the loss of bees was very very minimal if any at all. I went to the waterers because of the capacity. I saw this idea on YouTube while watching the heathland beekeeping series. I highly recommend all watch it if you haven't yet. Awesome old school beekeepers!

Re: Wine Corks?

I haven't used them for feeding the bees but I have for watering them. I use a large chicken waterer and I float the wine corks around the rim. The bees land on the corks and fill up. I drink enough wine to be sure and have enough corks to go all around the rim. Every once in a while a chicken will peck them out and I run them over with the mower. So...buy wine....drink wine....replace the corks. It's a great program!

"My wife always wanted girls. Just not thousands and thousands of them......"

Re: Wine Corks?

good idea on the corks but if you want to save cash the cheapest is qt size ziplock baggies layed on the top bars with a couple of small cuts on the side facing up and they dont drown bee's. If you use jars, also a good way to feed to punch the holes use a small finish nail and just punch the tip through about 3 - 5 times near the center. Note when you first invert these they will leak abit until they create a vaccuum